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What, then, of the "Number of the Infinite"?
To begin with, how is Number consistent with infinity?
Objects of sense are not unlimited and therefore the Number
applying to them cannot be so. Nor is an enumerator able to
number to infinity; though we double, multiply over and over
again, we still end with a finite number; though we range over
past and future, and consider them, even, as a totality, we still
end with the finite.
Are we then to dismiss absolute limitlessness and think merely
that there is always something beyond?
No; that more is not in the reckoner's power to produce; the
total stands already defined.
In the Intellectual the Beings are determined and with them
Number, the number corresponding to their total; in this sphere
of our own- as we make a man a multiple by counting up his
various characteristics, his beauty and the rest- we take each
image of Being and form a corresponding image of number; we
multiply a non-existent in and so produce multiple numbers; if we
number years we draw on the numbers in our own minds and apply
them to the years; these numbers are still our possession.
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